Recent content by Yew

I am of the view that it is not possible to make a train with comfortable suspension for the UK network with a 26m carriage length. The suspension has to devote too much effort to keeping the vehicle in-guage to have comfortable ride characteristics.

Ah yes, the "carrot" of barely being able to make ends meet working a dead-end warehouse job.

I feel it's important to remember that newspapers are not unbaised in their views of social media - lets of the advertising money that once supported many papers now gets spent on social media advertising. Don't get me wrong, there is cetainly a lot of criticism that can legitimately be made of...

Indeed, in generations gone by, there would have been many industries happy to take on apprentices, and give those not-so-acedemically inclined another chance to make something of themselves, in a workplace that could work to smooth off some rough-edges. Unfortunately, across much of the country...

In my previous interactions with you on this forum I have always found you to be able to engage in sensible discussion. I hope that is still the case, and that the straw-man argument above is just a symptom of having a lot of quotes to to respond to. I do wonder if it would be worth splitting...

Unfortuantely, longer sentences are politically expedient, they fit the "tough on crime" narrative, and the costs don't surface till later.

We already have one of the largest per-capita prison populations in Europe, which doesn't support the idea that the "tough on crima" mantra is all that effective. Whilst this approach might appear satisfying, it seems unlikely to solve the problem in the long term, and exacerbates the shortage...

From a socialist perspective, I can understand the desire to repay international solidarity, but the logical leaps required to turn that into "I'll repay the ukranians by fighting against them" shows either some remarkable mental gymnastics, or a unquestioning belief of Russian propoganda.

The understanding that I have is that gaming state welfare is inactuality a lot harder than the tabloids present it to be.

If there is one things that is detrimental to my mental health, dealing with off shore call centers is it.

I don't think anyone is claiming that, merely that with inflation, it's a lot less money in real terms than it was when the thresholds were set. Back in 2010, 100k was a decent house in many places, not so much these days.

I'm not certain that aligns with history, BR made many strategic investments, had lots of innovative programmes, and also rationalised and cut many costs. More recently, many foreign state companies have won competative tenders to provide rail services here in the UK - lets not forget that DB...

I don't think that the OP was suggesting converting existing trains.

Unfortunately, the strategy of the last 40 years, of trusting in the 'wisdom' of the free market has shown that well paid jobs and industries don't just appear in deprived and deindustrialised areas of our country. Hopefully we are learning that lesson, and will be more proactive in future...

I do feel that the change in demographics is something to be concerned about, I know it's often a bit of a right-wing thing to be concerned about the birth rate, but it does place the burden of paying for the pensions of an increasingly large group of retirees, by a much smaller number of...